Berlin - Potsdamer Platz

Great use of super wide angle and post proc treatment = very futuristic looking result. The contrast was really punched up for this and it works. -Greg-

Very good wide angle perspective was choosen here. This fits very well to the

subject ! Congrats !!!

Jan

Great pano work - especially hand held. This might be the first such pano I've seen - shot with such a wide lens - creates an amazing perspective in the right hands. Great shot with depth, detail, amazing tones, and eye catching interest.

Congratulations on a well-deserved POW Carsten. Your duotone treatment really pops and gives the impression of a futuristic urban landscape. The composition and your technique are flawless. This will look great printed LARGE.

This is not the sort of picture one wants to glance at -- it needs to be studied. At first I thought there was just too much in it for a single image, but the more I studied it, the more I wanted to continue looking at it. You do wonderful skies, and this picture is a good example, although the sky is only a small portion of the total photograph. I think the tones are about perfect for this architectural image. I really like it, but I keep wondering if there might just be TOO much in the picture. (That is more of a concern rather than a critique.) Glad yours was selected for POW, and I enjoyed looking over your portfolio--great skies!

For me the colour version has nowhere near the same degree of impact as the duotone rendering. Fantastic job.

apart from the fact that this is a highly sophisticated and enjoyable photograph to look at,

which definitley deserves all the honour and praise it has received, i suggest going through

carsten's complete works. you'd be surprised. keep it coming, carsten, my congrats.

Carsten,

 

I've come back to look at this photograph about 15 times in the last two hours. At first it seemed incredibly busy, but I was repeatedly drawn to it. I can't tell how how amazing I think it is. This is a photograph I would gladly purchase and hang on my wall, and I don't have any photographs hanging on my walls!

 

May I ask how you accomplished it? I'm still very much an amateur in this world, and can't begin to fathom how you got the results you did.

WHOA!!! I was IMMMEDIATELY drawn to this when the page came up. Excellent "titanium" futuristic feel to it. Excellent tones, composition, just everything. I dont think i could find much wrong with this, if any at all...WOW WOW WOW! Congrats on POW!

I had an immediate 'wow' response when the page opened. I prefer the mono (duotones) process since its so surreal as it is. The 10-22 pano, knowing that lens, is quite something. Congrats on POW--this is the first I've been really enthusiastic about for several weeks.

 

Diane

Carsten, I agree with Diane. I hardly am ever impressed by the POW, but this is really different, and extremely well done. Congratulations on such a fine picture and the recognition it (and you!) deserve.

Carsten, I am glad to see that this astounding photograph is receiving the attention it deserves, and that it is directing attention to your entire portfolio as well. One thing that continues to fascinate me about this image is its multiple centers of interest. The entire image is well unified, but at the same time multiple distinct local areas within it have sufficient interest on their own to catch the eye and lead it to explore them at length before moving back to the overall view again. A related feature is that, for me at least, there are in effect two focal points in this image, one at the center of the dome and the other a bit below it, at the invisible intersection of the lines formed by the buildings on the lower right. Yet instead of competing with each other, these two points are unified by the lines in the dome that lead the eye from one to the other and back. This truly is a mesmerizing photograph.

 

I'd like to also take this moment of recognition to thank you for being among the most insightful, constructive, and prolific commentators on all of photo.net. Your comments on my own posts and others' are always helpful and a delight to read. Your participation is part of what makes this site the valuable resource it is.

Very well put Chris.

Carsten,

You deserve every accolade you recieve for this. My question is, at what moment did you see the potential of this shot, and was it something you had previously thought about--in otherwords, did you have a plan? The reason I ask is, as a relatively inexperienced shooter, I know how important it is to have some kind of feel for what you want to convey. I haven't reached that stage yet, and am constantly wondering if I'll ever have the vision such as you've demonstrated. Does the shooting environment dictate the plan, or the other way around? Were you after this kind of shot in particular, or was it one of those chance encounters with the moment?

I have come back here to look several times today, and I think that generally the

comments here are right on. This is a very nice photo, graphic and yet rich with details to

wander through to see what might be discovered. The wide angle distortion creates a

movement that pushes the eye around always to come back to the circular canopy

overhead. Altho blue can sometimes diminish depth, there is enough red in this blue to

counteract this and still allow for a nice sense of depth. The overall tonality of the photo

is very nice and does not seem to have suffered from the upload. All this said, there is

one problem that is bothering me quite a bit. I like photos that are canted, shot off axis,

but they need to "be" off axis. Here, there is a noticeable and, for me, quite disconcerting

counterclockwise tilt to the photo. I am all for things that are disconcerting in good ways,

but I don't think this is. There aren't a lot of straight lines, but the buildings tops at the

bottom and the central buildings vertical are what creates the "lean" here. Since there is

already distortion in the image, I think a suitable correction could be made through the

transform command without losing too much of the image. These types of little, maybe

nit picky, things are what differentiate a very good photo from a great photo.

Well, looking to this image and remembering POW from last week is possible understand in this site, now, photoshop is most important than pictures.

Hi, every body, this is a cool picture to view and congratulation to Carsten Ranke for his POW. Now I ask to those how present here is we losing our compatibility to create a cool image with out the help of PS? I�m very much agreeing with Paulo pampolin and others

Why don�t we try something normal? Thanks to every one.

Paulo and Subhasish, I understand your sentiments, but here I think they are misdirected. This is not an excessively manipulated image. The most striking special effect in this photograph is due to use of a very wide angle lens, not to Photoshop techniques. Digitally stitched panoramas should be considered a legitimate and exciting extension of traditional photography, I think. I recall doing the same sort of thing much more clumsily many years ago by just arranging a whole bunch of prints one on top of another. As to post-processing, this image is really just a standard B&W conversion plus toning, again a fairly direct extension of traditional photography.

Reminds me of this one which I also love:

 

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3586549

"I love the almost unlimited possibilities of color to B&W" - Carsten Ranke.

 

So do I. :-)

 

Kudos also to Chris Fraser for his post regarding the double-focus composition.

 

I think Carsten�s POW is a great opportunity for many of us to learn something. Learn about the art of achieving great Photoshop conversions from color to bw. And learn about panoramics and stitching method with ultra-wide lenses. I know virtually nothing about stitched panoramics, but I believe I�m in fact using exactly Carsten�s method for bw conversions. So I�ll start with a little study about the POW�s channels, and end with a few questions about the stitching method.

 

At the top of my attachment, you�ll find Carsten�s POW (an artistic interpretation of reality), together with a standard greyscale conversion (which I obtained using the color image, and which is the �natural� or �realistic� conversion). Compare these two before looking at the other pix, and here is what you will notice:

 

1) In the POW, there is a lot more contrast between the two buildings on the left side.

2) Sky turned almost black, which makes the far tower stand out and creates a �hole� in the center of the picture.

3) A bit more contrast in the buildings at right.

4) Quite a bit more contrast in the circle at the top of thecomposition.

 

All this means, that Carsten controled SEPARATELY � and DIFFERENTLY � various areas in this picture. And he has reached a much more spectacular tonal rendition than the realistic conversion would have allowed.

 

How did he do it ? He selected some parts of the image in each channel and made up a puzzle ofall pieces, that would givehim entire tonal satisfaction. It seems he took the sky and back glass tower from the red channel, and darkened them even further. Buildings at left were probably copied from the blue channel. Etc. And after assembling all parts, it seems Carsten may have added even more contrast to several parts of this image, or perhaps to the entire image again.

 

Please note that some of my �guesses� may be wrong, because many things can be obtained in slightly different ways, but that�s more or less the METHOD used here, and I think that�s the best possible method for digital conversions. Especially knowing that each layer , taken from any channel (or portion of a channel), can be set to any desired opacity.

 

(As a side-note, I�d be interested if Carsten could let us know, whether he ever found any trace of a description of this method anywhere on the web - I never did -; and whether he knows people using this method besides him�)

 

My only minor critiques regarding the tones would be the following:

 

1) Perhaps a tad less contrast overall would give a little more realism to the image, while maintaining more unity � whereas a very strong contrast tendsto isolate many small parts in an already busy picture.

2) I�d have used the blue channel for the extreme lower part of the photo, which I don�t find really interesting, and which I�d therefore like to darken a bit � although some may prefer cropping it...

 

I�ve added an amended version - the last frame of the attached file. As you�ll see, the amendment on tones is really minor. You�ll also notice, thatI ended up cropping just a tad at the bottom, in order to get rid of the �cascade� of white tents.

 

All else is fine for me in this picture, and now I�d like to understand what this exactly means: �handheld landscape formats stitched vertically�. You took horizontal format pictures and stitched them to make a vertical frame, is that right ? But then why not shoot vertical frames - that�s what I don�t understand since I don�t shoot stitched panoramics ? Another request: would it be possible for you, carsen, to include in this thread the various images used to build this one � i.e. the unstitched photos�? Thanks, and congrats for this spectacular picture. For once, this may be Photoshop, but it�s Photoshop used in a smart way in order to create a great angle of view and enhance the tones. This picture gains a lot from the Photoshopper�s cleverness and skills, and that�s fine by me. Regards.

 

Sorry for all the question marks instead of ' or " or -...

 

That happens each time I type in a text editor using a French keyboard... :-(

Hello Carsten...congrats for this excellent shot and your deserved place here!

 

I am 100% for the B&W choice that gives, imho, far more strength to the image. Furthermore post treatment is excellent.

 

The high distortion caused by the wide angle is part of the final result. Far from bothering me, it gives this "unreal attractivity" that provokes the eyes. A rectilinear view would have had quite less energy and interest.

 

Concentrating precisely on this "surreal result", we could imagine to crop the lower part of the image, to offset the last links with reality, and choose a square frame that will come in perfect opposition with the circular dome and distorted buildings...something as attached...

 

What do you think ? Is it relevant ?

Technical problem...here is my attachment (I hope...!)

Congratulations Carsten, you deserve it fully. This is a very impressive photo that already has been subject to extensive discussions in your portfolio.

 

Now that it is a POW I would repeat one of my initial comments after having expressed my admiration on the general quality of the photo. However, if one should mention some reservations, we are here to criticise and not only to tap Carsten on the back, I would mention the structuring lines, forms and spaces in the scene that all lead the eye towards a the central dome, but the tall white building in the background stands out as a competing point of focus in the BW version because of its light tones of grey. It is after all not only the lines and spaces that construct a composition but also the play of colour or grey tones.

 

When Cartsten initially answered my remarks he showed the colour version of the photo and in my eyes that version does not have the same problem and the lines and forms play fully the composition as intended. Carsten, can we have the colour version in this threat also because I think it is important for this discussion.

 

This is the first time I see the selection of a POW that also I had discovered before. I even recommended it as POW ! !

 

Anders

last try !